Mary Lorimer returned in safety to Beremouth under Horace Erskine's
care, welcomed as may be supposed by the adopted father and her
mother. Not that "Mother Mary," as Lady Greystock in the old Claudia
Brewer days used to call her, could ever welcome Horace. She had never
liked him; she had always felt that there was some unknown wrong about
his seeking and his leaving Claudia; she had been glad that a long
absence abroad had kept him from them while her darling Mary had been
growing up; and it was with a spasm of fear that she heard of his
spending that autumn at her sister's. And yet she had consented to his
bringing Mary home. Yes, she had consented, for Mr. Brewer in his
overflowing hospitality had asked him to come to them--had regretted
that they had seen so little of him of late years--and had himself
suggested that he should come when Mary returned.
Nine years does a great deal; it may even pay people's debts
sometimes. But it had not paid Horace Erskine's debts: on the
contrary, it had added to them with all the bewildering peculiarities
that belong to calculations of interests and compound interests. He
had got to waiting for another man's death. How many have had to
become in heart death-dealers in this way! It was known that he would
be his uncle's heir, and his uncle added to what he supposed Horace
possessed a good sum yearly; making the man rich as he thought, and
causing occasionally a slight passing regret that Horace was so
saving. "He might do so much more if he liked on his good income," the
elder Mr. Erskine would say. But he did not know of the many sums for
ever paying to keep things quiet till death, the great paymaster,
should walk in and demand stern rights of himself, the elder, and pass
on the gold that we all must leave behind to the nephew, the younger
one.
But in the nine years that had passed since the coward took his
revenge on a brave woman by doing that which killed her husband, great
things had happened to pretty Minnie Lorimer. The "county people" had
been after her--those same old families who had flouted her mother,
and prophesied eternal poverty to her poor pet baby--fatherless, too!
a fact that finished the story of their faults with a note of peculiar
infamy.
That a man of good family should marry without money, become the
father of a lovely child, and _die_--that the mother should go back to
that old poverty-stricken home where that stiff-looking maid-servant
looked so steadily into the faces of all who stood and asked
admittance--that they should pretend to be happy!--altogether, it was
really too bad.
Why did not Mrs. Lorimer, widow, go out as a governess? Who was to
bring up that unfortunate child on a paltry one hundred a year? Of
course she begged for help. Of course they were supported by Mr.
Erskines's charity. A pretty humiliation of Lorimer's friends and
relations!
Altogether, the whole of the great Lansdowne Lorimer connection had
pronounced that to have that young widow and her daughter belonging to
them was a trial very hard to bear. They had not done talking when
Mary made that quiet walk to church--no one but her mother and Jenifer
being in the secret--and reappeared in the county after a few months'
absence as mistress of Beremouth. Mr. Brewer had counted his money,
and had told the world what it amounted to. And this time he never
apologized, he only confessed himself a person scarcely deserving of
respect, because he had done so little good with the mammon of
unrighteousness. But Mary now would tell him how to manage. He did
perhaps take a little to the humble line. He hoped the world would
forget and forgive his former shortcomings; such conduct would
assuredly not now be persevered in; and that resolution was fulfilled
without any doubt. The splendors of Beremouth were something to talk
about, and the range of duties involved in a large hospitality were
admirably performed.
Old Lady Caroline, whose pianoforte survived in Mrs. Morier's house at
Marston, considered the matter without using quite as many words as
her neighbors. "That man will be giving money to Lorimer's child." She
was quite right. He had already invested five thousand pounds for
Minnie. Lady Caroline (what an odd pride hers was!) went to Beremouth,
and got upon business matter with "Mother Mary."
She would give that child five thousand pounds in her will if Mr.
Brewer would not give her anything. Alas! it was already given. Mr.
Brewer used to count among his faults that, with him, it was too much
a word and a blow, especially when a good action was in question, and
this curious unusual fault he had decidedly committed in the case of
Minnie Lorimer. The money was hers safe enough, invested in the hands
of trustees. "Safe enough," said Mr. Brewer exultingly; and then,
looking with a saddened air on Lady Caroline, he added, gravely, that
it couldn't be helped! "The man's a saint or a fool, I can't tell
which," was Lady Caroline's very cute remark. "The most unselfish
idiot that ever lived. Does Mary like him, or laugh at him, I wonder?"
But Lady Caroline cultivated Mr. Brewer's acquaintance. Not in an evil
way, but because she had been brought up to _use_ the world, and to
slave all mankind who would consent to such persecution. Not wickedly,
I repeat, but with a fixed intention she cultivated Mr. Brewer, and
she got money out of him.
Mr. Brewer still made experiments with ten pounds. He helped Lady
Caroline in her many charities, as long as her charities were confined
to food and clothing, so much a week to the poor, and getting good
nursing for the sick. But once Lady Caroline used that charity purse
for purposes of "souping"--it has become an English word, so I do not
stop to explain it--and then Mr. Brewer scolded her. Nobody had ever
disputed any point with Lady Caroline. But Mr. Brewer explained, with
a most unexpected lucidity, how it would be _right_ for him to make
her a Catholic, and yet _wrong_ for her to try her notions of
conversion on him.
Lady Caroline kept up the quarrel for two years. She upbraided him for
his neglect, on his own principles, of Claudia. She abused him for the
different conduct pursued about his son. Mr. Brewer confessed his
faults and stood by his rights at the same time. Two whole years Lady
Caroline quarrelled, and Mr. Brewer never left the field. And
afterward, some time after, when Lady Caroline was in her last
illness, she said: "I believe that man Brewer may be right after all."
When she was dead young Mary Lorimer had double the sum that had
been originally offered, and Freddy her largest diamond ring.
But another thing had to come out of all this. Mrs. Brewer became a
Catholic; and that fact had made her recall her daughter to her
side--that fact had made Horace Erskine say, at the inn at Hull, that
he dreaded for the girl he, spoke to the influence of the home and the
people she was going to--that fact had brought that passion of tears
to Mary Lorimer's eyes, and had made her feel so angrily that he had
taken an advantage of her.
Here, then, we are back again to the time at which we began the story.
Mary got home and was welcomed.
The day after their arrival, if we leave Beremouth and its people, and
go into Marston to Mrs. Morier, "old Mrs. Morier" they called her now,
we shall see Jenifer walk into the pleasant upstairs drawing-room,
where the china glittered on comer-shelves, and large jars stood under
the long inlaid table, and say to her mistress: "Eleanor is come, if
you please, ma'am."
Mrs. Morier looked up from her knitting. She had been sitting by the
window, and the beautiful old lady looked like a picture, as Jenifer
often declared, as she turned the face shadowed by fine lace toward
her servant with a sweet, gentle air, and smiling said, "And so you
want to go to Clayton--and Eleanor is to stay till you come back?"
"Yes, ma'am--it's the anniversary." "Go, then," said the gentle lady.
"And you must not leave me out of your prayers, my good Jenifer; for
you may be sure that I respect and value them." "I'll be back in good
time," said Jenifer; and the door closed, and Mrs. Morier continued
her knitting.
Soon she saw from the window that incomparable Jenifer. Her brown
light stuff gown, the black velvet trimming looking what Jenifer
called _rich_ upon the same. Buttons as big as pennies all the way
down the front--the good black shawl with the handsome border that
had been Mr. Brewer's own present to her on the occasion of his
wedding; the fine straw bonnet and spotless white ribbon--the crowning
glory of the black lace veil--oh, Jenifer was _somebody_, I can tell
you, at Marston; and Jenifer looked it.
It was with nothing short of a loving smile that Mrs. Morier watched
her servant. Servant indeed, but true, tried, and trusty friend also;
and when the woman was out of sight, and Mrs. Morier turned her
thoughts to Jenifer's prayer, and what little she knew of it, she
sighed--the sigh came from deep down, and the sigh was lengthened, and
her whole thoughts seemed to rest upon it--it was breathed out, at
last, and when it died away Mrs. Morier sat doing nothing in peaceful
contemplation till the door opened, and she whom we have heard called
Eleanor came in with inquiries as to the proper time for tea.
I think that this Eleanor was perhaps about eight-and-twenty years of
age. She was strikingly beautiful. Perhaps few people have ever seen
anything more faultlessly handsome than this young woman's form and
face. She looked younger than she was. The perfectly smooth brow and
the extraordinary fair complexion made her look young. No one would
have thought, when looking at Eleanor, that she had ever _worked_. If
the finest and loveliest gentlewoman in the world had chosen to put on
a lilac cotton gown, and a white checked muslin apron, and bring up
Mrs. Morier's early tea, she would perhaps have looked a little like
Eleanor; provided her new employment had not endowed her with a
momentary awkwardness. But admiration, when looking at this woman, was
a little checked by a sort of atmosphere of pain--or perhaps it was
only patience--that surrounded the beautiful face, and showed in every
gesture and movement, and rested on the whole being, as it were.
Eleanor suffered. And it was the pain of the mind and heart, not of
the body--no one who had sufficient sensibility to see what I have
described could ever doubt that the inner woman, not the outer fleshly
form of beauty, suffered; and that the woe, whatever it was, had
written _patience_ on that too placid brow.
"And are they all well at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very well, ma'am, I believe.
I saw Lady Greystock in her own rooms an hour before I came away. I
said that I was coming here, and she said"--Eleanor smiled--"Lady
Greystock said, ma'am, 'My duty to grandmamma Morier--mind you give
the message right.'"
"Ah," said Mrs. Morier, "Lady Greystock is wonderfully well." "There
is nothing the matter with her, ma'am." "Except that she never goes to
Beremouth." What made the faint carnation mount to Eleanor's
face?--what made the woman pause to collect herself before she
spoke?--"Oh, ma'am, she is right not to try herself. She'll go there
one day." "I suppose you like being at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very much. My
place of wardrobe-woman is not hard, but it is responsible. It suits
me well. And Mrs. Rankin is very good to me. And I am near Lady
Greystock." "How fond you are of her!" "There is not anything I would
not do for her," said the woman with animation. "I hope, indeed Dr.
Rankin tells me to believe, that I have had a great deal to do with
Lady Greystock's cure. She has treated me like a sister; and I can
never feel for any one what I feel for her." "Lady Greystock always
speaks of you in a truly affectionate way. She says you have known
better days." "_Different_ days; I don't say _better_. I have nothing
to wish for. Ever since the time that Lady Greystock determined on
staying at Blagden, I have been quite happy." "You came just as she
came." "Only two months after." "And did you like her from the first?"
"Oh, Mrs. Morier, you know she was very ill when she came. I never
thought of love, but of every care and every attention that one woman
could show to another. Had it been life for life, I am sure she might
have had _my_ life--that was all that I _then_ thought. But when she
recovered and loved me for what I had done for her, then it was love
for love. Lady Greystock gave me a new life, and I will serve her as
long as I may for gratitude, and as a thanksgiving."
When Eleanor was gone, her pleasant manner, her beauty, the music of
her voice, and the indescribable grace that belonged to her remained
with Mrs. Morier as a pleasant memory, and dwelling on it, she
lingered over her early tea, and ate of hashed mutton, making
meditation on how Eleanor had got to be Jenifer's great friend; and
whether their both being Catholics was enough to account for it.
This while Jenifer walked on toward Clayton. She stood at last on the
top of a wide table-land, and looked from the short grass where the
wild thyme grew like green velvet, and the chamomile gave forth
fragrance as you trod it under foot, down a rugged precipice into the
little seaport that sheltered in the cove below. The roofs of the
strange, dirty, tumble-down houses were packed thickly below her. The
nature of the precipitous cliff was to lie in terraces, and here and
there goats and donkeys among the branching fern gave a picturesque
variety to the scene, and made the practical Jenifer say to herself
that Clayton Cove was not "that altogether abominable" when seen to
the best advantage on the afternoon of a rich autumn day. A zigzag
path, rather difficult to get upon on account of the steepness of the
broken edge and the rolling stones, led from Jenifer's feet down to
the terraces; short cuts of steps and sliding stones led from terrace
to terrace, and these paths ended, as it appeared to the eye, in a
chimney-top that sent up a volume of white smoke, and a pleasant
scent of wood and burning turf. By the side of the house that owned
the chimney, which was whitewashed carefully, and had white blinds
inside the green painted wood-work of small sash windows, appeared
another roof, long, high, narrow, with a cross on the eastern gable,
and that was the Catholic chapel--the house Father Daniels lived in;
and after a moment's pause down the path went Jenifer with all the
speed that a proper respect for her personal safety permitted. When
the woman got to the last terrace, she opened a wicket gate, and was
in a sunny garden, still among slopes and terraces, and loaded with
flowers. Common flowers no doubt, but who ever saw Father Daniels's
Canterbury bells and forgot them? There, safe in the bottom walk,
wide, and paved with pebbles from the beach, Jenifer turned not to the
right where the trellised back-door invited, but to the left, where
the west door of the chapel stood open--and she walked in. There was
no one there. She knelt down. After a while she rose, and kneeling
before the image of our Lady, said softly: "Mother, she had no mother!
Eleven years this day since that marriage by God's priest, and at his
holy altar--eleven years this day since that marriage which the laws
of the men of this country deny and deride. Mother, she had no mother!
Oh, mighty Mother! forget neither of them. Remember her for her
trouble, and him for his sin." Not for vengeance but for salvation,
she might have added; but Jenifer had never been accustomed to explain
her prayers. Then she knelt before the adorable Presence on the altar,
and her prayer was very brief--"My life, and all that is in it!"--was
it a vain repetition that she said it again and again? Again and
again, as she looked back and thought of what _it had been_; as she
thought of that which _it was_; and knew of the future that, blessed
by our Lady's prayers, she should take it, whatever it might be, as
the will of God. And so she said it; by so doing offering _herself_.
One great thing had colored all her life; had, to her, been _life_--
_her_ life; she, with that great shadow on the past, with the weight
of the cross on the present, with the fear of unknown ill on the
future, gathered together all prayer, all hope, all fear, and gave it
to God in those words of offering that were, on her lips, an earnest
prayer; the prayer of submission, of offering, of faith--"_My life,
and all that is in it_."
Jenifer could tell out her wishes to the Mother of God, and had told
them, in the words she had used, but it was this woman's way to have
no wishes when she knelt before God himself. "My life, and all that is
in it;" that was Jenifer's prayer.
After a time she left the chapel, putting pieces of money, many, into
the church box, and went into the house. She knew Mrs. Moore, the
priest's housekeeper, very well. She was shown into Father Daniels's
sitting-room. He was a venerable man of full seventy years of age, and
as she entered he put down the tools with which he was carving the
ornaments of a wooden altar, and said, "You are later than your note
promised. I have therefore been working by daylight, which I don't
often do." She looked at the work. It seemed to her to be very
beautiful. "It is fine and teak-wood," said Father Daniels; "part of a
wreck. They brought it to me for the church. We hope to get up a
little mariner's chapel on the south side of the church before long,
and I am getting ready the altar as far as I can with my own hands.
'Mary, star of the sea'--that will be our dedication. The faith
spreads here. Mistress Jenifer; and I hope we are a little better than
we used to be." And Father Daniels crossed himself and thanked God for
his grace that had blessed that wild little spot, and made many
Christians there. Jenifer smiled, as the holy man spoke in a
playful tone, and she said, "It is the anniversary, father." "Of
Eleanor's marriage. Yes. I remembered her at mass. Has she heard
anything of him?" "Yes, father; she has heard his real name, she
thinks. She has always suspected, from the time that she first began
to suspect evil, that she had never known him by his real name--she
never believed his name to be Henry Evelyn, as he said when he married
her."
"And what is his real name?"
"Horace Erskine," said Jenifer.
"What!" exclaimed Father Daniels, with an unusual tone of alarm in his
voice. "The man who was talked of for Lady Greystock before she
married--the nephew of Mrs. Brewer's sister's husband!" "Yes, sir."
"Is she sure?" "No. She has not seen him. But she has traced him, she
thinks. Corny Nugent, who is her second cousin, and knew them both
when the marriage took place, went as a servant to the elder Mr.
Erskine, and knew Henry Evelyn, as they called him in Ireland, when he
came back from abroad. He _thought_ he knew him. Then Horace Erskine,
finding he was an Irishman, would joke him about his religion, and how
he was the only Catholic in the house, and how he was obliged to walk
five miles to mass. Time was when Mr. Erskine, the uncle, would not
have kept a Catholic servant. But since Mr. and Mrs. Brewer married,
he has been less bigoted. He took Corny Nugent in London. It was just
a one season's engagement. But when they were to return to Scotland
they proposed to keep him on, and he stayed. After a little Horace
Erskine asked him about Ireland; and even if he knew such and such
places; and then he came by degrees to the very place--the very
people--to his own knowledge of them. Corny gave crafty answers. But
he disliked the sight of the man, and the positions he put him into.
So he left. He left three months ago. And he found out Eleanor's
direction, and told her that surely--surely and certainly--her
husband, Henry Evelyn, was no other than his late master's nephew, who
had been trying to marry more than one, only always some unlooked-for
and unaccountable thing had happened to prevent it. Our Lady be
praised, for her prayers have kept off that last woe--I make no
doubt--thank God!"
"How many years is it since they married?" "Eleven, to-day. I keep the
anniversary. He is older than he looks. He is thirty-two, this year,
if he did not lie about his age, as well as everything else. He told
Father Power he was of age. He said, too--God forgive him--that he was
a Catholic."
"But when I followed Father Power at Rathcoyle," said the priest,
"there was no register of the marriage. I was sent for on the
afternoon of the marriage day. I found Father Power in a dying state.
He was an old man, and had long been infirm. The marriage was not
entered. It was known to have taken place. Your niece and her husband
were gone. I walked out that evening to your brother's farm. He knew
nothing of the marriage. He had received a note to say that Eleanor
was gone with her husband, and that they would hear from them when
they got to England. Why Father Power, who was a saintly man, married
them, I do not know. It was unlawful for him to marry a Catholic and a
Protestant. If your sister went through no other marriage, she has no
claim on her Protestant husband. If she could prove that he passed
himself off as a Catholic, she might have some ground against
him--but, can she?"
"No, sir; on the contrary, she knew that she was marrying a
Protestant; she had hopes of converting him; she learnt from
himself, afterward, that he had deceived the priest. She had said to
him that she would many him if Father Power consented. He came back
and said that the consent had been given. He promised to marry her in
Dublin conformably to the license he had got there--or there he had
lived the proper time for getting one, so he declared. But I have
ceased to believe anything he said. Then my brother wrote the girl a
dreadful letter to the direction in Liverpool that she had sent to
him. Then, after some months, she wrote to me at Marston. She was
deserted, and left in the Isle of Man. She supported herself there for
more than a year. I told Mr. Brewer that I knew a sad story of the
daughter of a friend, and one of her letters, saying her last gold was
changed into silvery and that she was too ill and worn oat to win
more, was so dreadful, that I feared for her mind. So Mr. Brewer went
to Dr. Rankin, and got her taken in as a patient, at first, and when
she got well she was kept on as wardrobe-woman. She had got a tender
heart; when she heard of Lady Greystock's trial, she took to her. Dr.
Rankin says he could never have cured Lady Greystock so perfectly nor
so quickly, but for Eleanor."
"That is curious," said Father Daniels, musingly. "Have you been in
Ireland since the girl left it with her husband?"
"I never was there in my life. My mother was Irish, and she lived as a
servant in England. She married an Englishman, and she had two
daughters, my sister--Eleanor's mother--and myself. My mother went
back to Ireland a year after her husband's death, on a visit, and she
left my sister and me with my father's family. She married in Ireland
almost directly, and married well, a man with a good property, a
farmer. She died, and left one son. My sister and I were four and five
years older than this half-brother of ours. Then time wore on and my
sister Ellen went to Ireland, and she married there, and the fever
came to the place where they lived, and carried them both off, and she
left me a legacy--my niece Eleanor--oh, sir I with such a holy letter
of recommendation from her death-bed. Poor sister! Poor, holy soul!
Our half-brother asked to have Eleanor to stay with him when she knew
enough to be useful on the farm. He was a good Christian, and I let
him take the girl. She was very pretty, people said, and I wished her
to marry soon. Then there came--sent, he said, by a great rich English
nobleman--a man who called himself a gardener, or something of that
sort. He lodged close by; he made friends with my brother. He was
often off after rare bog-plants, and seemed to lead a busy if an easy
life. He would go to mass with them. But they knew he was a
Protestant. Eleanor knew that her uncle would not consent to her
marrying a Protestant. But, poor child, she gave her heart away to the
gentleman in disguise. He had had friends there--a fishing party. Sir,
he never intended honorably; but they were married by the priest, and
he got over the holy man, whom everybody loved and honored, with his
falseness, as he had got over the true-hearted and trusting woman whom
he had planned to desert."
"Well," said Father Daniels, "you know I succeeded this priest for a
short time at Rathcoyle. He died on that wedding day. I never
understood how it all happened. I left a record to save Eleanor's
honor; but she has no legal claim on her husband--it ought not to have
been done." Jenifer shrank beneath the plainness of that truth--"_My
life, and all that is in it,_" her heart said, sinking, as it were, at
the sorrow that had come on the girl whom her sister had left to her
with her dying breath.
"She ought not to have trusted a man who was a Protestant, and not
willing to marry her in the only way that is legal by the Irish
marriage-law." "_My life, and all that is in it._" So hopelessly
fell on her heart every word that the priest spoke, that, but for that
offering of all things to God, poor Jenifer could scarcely have borne
her trial.
"And if this Henry Evelyn should turn out to be Horace Erskine, why,
he will marry some unhappy woman some time, of course, and the law of
the land will give him one wife, and by the law of God another woman
will claim him. Oh, if people would but obey holy church, and not try
to live under laws of their own inventing." "_My life, and all that is
in it!_" Again, only that could have made Jenifer bear the trials that
were presented to her.
"And if gossip spoke truth he was very near marrying Lady Greystock
once--Mr. Brewer, himself, thought it was going to be." One more great
act of submission--"_My life, and all that is in it!_"--came forth
from Jenifer's heart. She loved Mr. Brewer, with a faithful sort of
worship--if such a trial as that had come on him through her
trouble!--_that_ was over; _that_ had been turned aside; but the
thought gave rise to a question, even as she thanked God for the
averted woe.
'"Is it Eleanor's duty to find out if Henry Evelyn and Horace Erskine
are one?" "Yes," said the priest "Yes; it is. It is everybody's duty
to prevent mischief. It is her duty, as far as lies in her power, to
prevent sin."
"And if it proves true--that which Corny Nugent says, what then?"
"Be content for the present. It is a very difficult case to act in."
Poor Jenifer felt the priest to be sadly wanting in sympathy--she
turned again to him who knows all and feels all, and she offered up
the disappointment that _would_ grow up in her heart--"_My life, and
all that is in it!_"
She turned to go; and then Father Daniels spoke so kindly, so
solemnly, with such a depth of sympathy in the tone of his voice--"God
bless you, my child;" and the sign of the cross seemed to bless her
sensibly. "Thank you, father!" And, without lifting her eyes, she left
the room and the house; and still saying that prayer that had grown to
be her strength and her help, she went up the steep rugged path to the
spreading down; and then she turned round and looked on the great sea
heaving, lazily under the sunset rays, that painted it in the far
distance with gold and red, and a silvery light, till it touched the
ruby-colored sky, and received each separate ray of glory on its
breast just where earth and heaven seemed to meet--just where you
could fancy another world looking into the depths of the great sea
that flowed up into its gates. It seemed to do Jenifer good. The whole
scene was so glorious, and the glory was so far-spreading--all the
world seemed to rest around her bathed in warm light and basking in
the smile of heaven. She stood still and said again, in a sweet soft
voice: "_My life, and all that is in it!_"
Her great dread that day when Mr. Brewer had told her to put him and
his into her prayer, had been lest the punishment of sin should come
on the man who had deserted her dear girl, and lest that sin's effect
in a heart-broken disease should fall on the girl herself.
When Mr. Brewer said, "Put me and mine into that prayer, Jenifer," the
thought had risen that she would tell him of Eleanor. She had told
him, and he had helped her. But she had never thought that, by acting
on the impulse, the two women whose hearts Horace Erskine had crushed,
as a wilful child breaks his playthings when he has got tired or out
of temper, had been brought together under one roof, and made to love
each other. Yet so it had been. The woman who could do nothing but
pray _had_ prayed; and a thing had been done which no human
contrivance could have effected. And as Jenifer stood gazing on the
heavens that grew brighter and brighter, and on the water that
reflected every glory, and seemed to bask with a living motion in the
great magnificence that was poured upon it, she recollected how great
a pain had been spared her; she thought how terrible it would
have been if Claudia Brewer had married Horace Erskine--Horace
Erskine, the husband of the deserted Eleanor; and she gave thanks to
God.
Now she drew her shawl tighter round her, and walked briskly on. She
got across the down, and over a stone stile in the fence that was its
boundary from the road. She turned toward Marston, and walked fast--it
was almost getting cold after that glorious sunset, and she increased
her pace and went on rapidly. She soon saw a carriage in the road
before her, driving slowly, and meeting her. When it came near enough
to recognize her, the lady who drove let her ponies go, and then
pulled up at Jenifer's side. "Now, Mistress Jenifer," said Lady
Greystock, looking bright and beautiful in the black hat, and long
streaming black feather, that people wore in those days, "here am I to
drive you home. I knew where you were going. Eleanor tells me her
secrets. Do you know that? This is an anniversary; and you give gifts
and say prayers. Are you comfortable? I am going to drive fast to
please the ponies; they like it, you know." And very true did Lady
Greystock's words seem; for the little creatures given their heads
went off at a pace that had in it every evidence of perfect good will.
"I came to drive you back, and to pick up Eleanor, and drive her to
Blagden after I had delivered you up safely to grandmamma Morier.
Mother Mary came to see me this afternoon. You had better go and see
Minnie soon. Jenifer"--Jenifer looked up surprised at a strange tone
in Lady Greystock's voice---"Jenifer," speaking very low, "if you can
pray for my father and his wife, and all he loves, pray now. It would
be hard for a man to be trapped by the greatness of his own good
heart."
"Is there anything wrong, my dear?" Jenifer spoke softly, and just as
she had been used to speak to the Claudia Brewer of old days.
"I can't say more," Lady Greystock replied; "here we are at Marston."
Then she talked of common things; and told James, the man-servant, to
drive the horses up and down the street while she bade Mrs. Morier
"Good night." And they went into the house, and half an hour after
Lady Greystock and Eleanor had got into the pony carriage, and were
driving away. The quiet street was empty once more. The little
excitement made by Lady Greystock and her ponies subsided. Good-byes
were spoken, and the quiet of night settled down on the streets and
houses of Marston.
Jenifer had wondered over Lady Greystock's words; and comforted
herself, and stilled her fears, and set her guesses all at rest by
those few long-used powerful words--"_My life, and all that is in
it!_" She offered life, and gave up its work and its trials to God;
and Jenifer, too, was at rest then.
But at Clayton things were not quite in the same peaceful state as in
that little old-fashioned inland town. Clayton was very busy; and
among the busy ones, though busy in his own way, was Father Daniels.
That morning a messenger had brought him a packet from Mrs. Brewer;
for "Mother Mary" since becoming a Catholic had wanted advice, and
wanted strength, and she had sought and found what she wanted, and now
she had sent to the same source for further help. As soon as Jenifer
was gone, Father Daniels put away his teak-wood and his carving tools,
and packed up his drawings and his pencils. He was a man of great
neatness, and his accuracy in all business, and his fruitful
recollection of every living soul's wants, as far as they had ever
been made known to him, were charming points of his character--
points, that is, natural gifts, that the great charity which belonged
to his priesthood adorned and made meritorious. While he
"tidied away his things," as his housekeeper Mrs. Moore used to say,
bethought and he prayed--his mind foresaw great possible woe; he knew,
with the knowledge that is made up of faith and experience united,
that some things seem plainly to know no other master than prayer.
People are prayed out of troubles that no other power can touch. Every
now and then this fact seems to be imprinted in legible characters on
some particular woe, actual or threatened; and though Father Daniels,
like a holy priest, prayed always and habitually, he yet felt, as we
have said, with respect to the peculiar entanglements that the letter
from Mrs. Brewer in the morning and the revelation made by Jenifer in
the afternoon seemed to threaten. So, when he again sat down, it was
with Mrs. Brewer's letter before him on the table, and a lamp lighted,
and "the magnifiers," to quote Mrs. Moore again, put on to make the
deciphering of Mrs. Erskine's handwriting as easy as possible. Mrs.
Brewer's was larger, blacker, plainer--and her note was short. It only
said: "Read my sister's letter, which I have just received. It seems
so hard to give up the child; it would be much harder to see her less
happy than she has always been at home. I don't like Horace Erskine.
It is as if I was kept from liking him. I really have no reason for my
prejudice against him. Come and see me if you can, and send or bring
back the letter." Having put this aside. Father Daniels opened Mrs.
Erskine's letter. It must be given just as it was written to the
reader:
DEAREST MARY:
"You must guess how dreadful your becoming a Catholic is to us. I
cannot conceive why, when you had been happy so long--these thirteen
years--you should do this unaccountable thing now. There must have
been some strange influence exercised over you by Mr. Brewer. I
feared how it might be when, nine years ago, your boy was born, and
you gave him up so weakly. However, I think you will see plainly
that you have quite forfeited a mother's rights over Mary. She is
seventeen, and will not have a happy home with you now. Poor child,
she would turn Catholic to please you, and for peace sake, perhaps.
But you cannot _wish_ such a misery for her. She will, I suppose,
soon be the only Protestant in your house. I can't help blaming old
Lady Caroline, even after her death; for she certainly brought the
spirit of controversy into Beremouth, and stirred up Mr. Brewer to
think of his rights. Now, I write to propose what is simply an act
of justice on your part, though really, I must say, an act of great
grace on the part of my husband. Horace is in love with Mary. As to
the fancy he was supposed to have for Claudia, I _know_ that _that_
was only a fancy. He was taken with her wilful, spoilt-child
ways--you certainly did not train her properly--and he wanted her
money. Of course as you had been married four years without
children, he did not suspect anything about Freddy. It was an
entanglement well got rid of; and Claudia wanted no comforting, that
was plain enough. But it is different now. Horace _is_ in love
_now_. And if Mary is not made a Catholic by Mr. Brewer and you and
old Jenifer, she will say, 'Yes,' like a good child. We are
_extremely_ fond of her. And Mr. Erskine generously offers to make a
very handsome settlement on her. I consider a marriage, and a very
speedy one, with Horace the best thing; now that you have, by your
own act, made her home so homeless to her. I am sure you ought to be
very thankful for so obviously good an arrangement of difficulties.
Let me hear from you as soon as Horace arrives. He is going to speak
to you directly.
"Your affectionate sister,
"Lucia Erskine.
"P.S.--As Mr. Brewer has always said that, Mary being his adopted
child, he should pay her on her marriage the full interest of the
money which will be hers at twenty-one, of course Horace
expects that, as we do. Lady Caroline's ten thousand, Mr. Brewer's
five thousand, and the hundred a year for which her father insured
his life, and which I find that you give to her, will, with Horace's
means, make a good income; and to this Mr. Erskine will, as Mary is
my niece, add very liberally. I cannot suppose that you can think of
objecting. L. E."
Father Daniels read this letter over very carefully. Then he placed
it, with Mrs. Brewer's note, in his pocket-book, and immediately
putting on his hat, and taking his stick, he walked into the kitchen.
"Where's your husband?" to Mrs. Moore.
"Mark is only just outside, sir."
"I shall be back soon. Tell him to saddle the cob." One of Mr.
Brewer's experiments had been to give Father Daniels a horse, and to
endow the horse with fifty pounds a year, for tax, keep, house-rent,
physic, saddles, shoes, clothing, and general attendance. It was, we
May say as we pass on, an experiment which answered to perfection. The
cob's turnpikes alone remained as a grievance in Mr. Brewer's mind. He
rather cherished the grievance. Somehow it did him good. It certainly
deprived him of all feeling of merit. All thought of his own
generosity was extinguished beneath the weight of a truth that could
not be denied--"that cob is a never-ending expense to Father Daniels!"
However, this time, without a thought of the never-ending turnpike's
tax, the cob was ordered; being late, much to Mr. and Mrs. Moore's
surprise; and Father Daniels walked briskly out of the garden, down
the village seaport, past the coal-wharves, where everything looked
black and dismal, and so pursued his way on the top of the low edge of
the cliff, to a few tidy-looking houses half a mile from Clayton,
which were railed in from the turfy cliff-side, and had painted on
their ends, "Good bathing here." The houses were in a row. He knocked
at the centre one, and it was opened by a man of generally a seafaring
cast. "Mr. Dawson in?" "Yes, your reverence. His reverence, Father
Dawson, is in the parlor;" and into the parlor walked Father Daniels.
It was a short visit made to ascertain if his invalid friend could say
mass for him the next morning at a later hour than usual--the hour for
the parish mass, in fact; and to tell him why. They were dear friends
and mutual advisers. They now talked over Mrs. Erskine's letter.
"There can be no reason in the world why Miss Lorimer should not marry
Horace Erskine if she likes him, provided he is not Henry Evelyn. He
stands charged with being Henry Evelyn, and of being the doer of Henry
Evelyn's deeds. You must tell Mrs. Brewer. It is better never to tell
suspicions, if you can, instead, tell facts. In so serious a matter
you may be obliged to tell suspicions, just to keep mischief away at
the beginning. Eleanor must see the man. As to claiming him, that's
useless. She acted the unwise woman's part, and she most bear the
unwise woman's recompense. He'll find somebody to marry him, no doubt;
but no woman ought to do it; no marriage of his can be right in God's
sight. So the course in the present instance is plain enough." Yes, it
was plain enough; so Father Daniels walked back to Clayton and mounted
the cob, and rode away through the soft sweet night air, and got to
Beremouth just after ten o'clock.
"I am come to say mass for you to-morrow," he said to Mr. Brewer, who
met him in the hall. "No, I won't go into the drawing-room. I won't
see any one to-night. I am going straight to the chapel."
"Ring for night prayers then in five minutes, will you?" said Mr.
Brewer. And Father Daniels, saying "Yes," walked on through the hall,
and up the great stair-case to his own room and the chapel, which,
were side by side. In five minutes the chapel bell was rung by the
priest. Mrs. Brewer looked toward her daughter. "Mary must do as she
likes;" said Mr. Brewer, in his open honest way driving his wife
before him out of the room. There stood Horace Erskine. It was as if
all in a moment the time for the great choice had come. They were at
the door--the girl stood still. They were gone, they were crossing the
hall; she could hear Mr. Brewer's shoes on the carpet--not too late
for her to follow. Her light step will catch theirs--they may go a
little further still before the very last moment comes. Her mother or
Horace? How dearly she loved her mother, how her child's heart went
after her, all trust and love--and Horace, _did_ she love him?--love
him well enough to stay _there--there_ and _then_, at a moment that
would weigh so very heavily in the scale of good and evil, right or
wrong? If he had not been there she might have stayed, if she stayed
now that he was there, should she not stay with him--more, leave her
mother and stay with him? Thought is quick. She stood by the table;
she looked toward the door, she listened--Horace held out his
hand--"With me, Mary--with _me_!" And she was gone. Gone even while he
spoke, across the hall, up the stairs and at that chapel door just as
this last of the servants, without knowing, closed it on her. Then
Mary went to her own room just at the head of the great stair-case,
and opened the doors softly, and knelt down, keeping it open, letting
the stair-case lamp stray into the darkness just enough to show her
where she was. There she knelt till the night prayers were over, and
when Mr. Brewer passed her door, she came out, a little glad to show
them that she had not been staying down stairs with Horace. He smiled,
and put his hand inside her arm and stopped her from going down. "My
dear child," he said, "I have had the great blessing of my life given
to me in the conversion of your mother. If God's great grace, for the
sake of his own blessed mother, should fall on you, you will not
quench it, my darling. Meanwhile, I shall never have a better time
than _this_ time to say, that I feel more than ever a father to you.
That if you will go on treating me with the childlike candor and trust
that I have loved to see in you, you will make me happier than you can
ever guess at, dear child." And then he kissed her, and Minnie eased
her heart by a few sobs and tears, and her head rested on his
shoulder, and she thanked him for his love. Then Father Daniels came
out of the chapel, and advanced to where they stood. Mary had long
known the holy man. He saw how it was in an instant. "Welcome home,
Mary; you see I come soon. And now--when I am saying mass to-morrow,
stay quietly in your own room, and pray to be taught to love God. Give
yourself to him. Don't trouble about questions. His you are. Rest on
the thought--and we will wait on what may come of it. I shall remember
you at mass to-morrow. Good-night. God bless you."
"I can't come down again. My eyes are red," said Mary, to Mr. Brewer,
when they were again alone. And he laughed at her. "I'll send mamma
up," he said. And Mary went into her room. But she had taken no part
_against_ her mother; so her heart said, and congratulated itself. She
had not left her, and stayed with Horace. She had had those few words
with her step-father. That was over, and very happily too. She had
seen Father Daniels again. It was getting speedily like the old
things, and the old times, before the long visit to Scotland, where
Horace Erskine was the sun of her new world. Somehow she felt
that he was losing power every moment--also she felt, a little
resentfully, that there had been things said or thought, or
insinuated, about the dear home she was loving so well, which were
unjust, untrue, unkind; nay, more, cruel, shameful!--and so wrong to
unite _her_ to such ideas; to make her a party to such thoughts. In
the midst of her resentment, her mother came in. "Nobody ever was so
charming looking," was the first thought. "How young she looks--how
much younger and handsomer than Aunt Erskine. What a warm loving
atmosphere this house always had, and _has_." The last word with the
emphasis of a perfect conviction. "And so you have made your eyes red
on papa's coat--and I had to wipe the tears off with my
pocket-handkerchief. Oh, you darling, I am sure Horace Erskine thought
we had beaten you!" Then kisses, and laughter; not quite without a tear
or two on both, sides, however. "Now, my darling, Horace has told us
his love story--and so he is very fond of you?" "Mamma, mamma, I love
you better than all the earth." Kisses, laughter, and just one or two
tears, all over again.
"My darling child, you have been some months away from us--do you
think you can quite tell your own mind on a question which is
life-long in its results? I mean, that the thing that is pleasant in
one place may not be so altogether delightful in another. I should
like you to decide so great a question while in the full enjoyment of
your own rights _here_. This is your _home_. _This_ is what you will
have to exchange for something else when you marry. You are very young
to marry--not eighteen, remember. Whenever you decide that question, I
should like you to decide it on your own ground, and by your own
mother's side."
"I wonder whether you know how wise you are?" was the question that
came in answer. "Do you know, mother, that I cried like a baby at
Hull, because I felt all you have said, and even a little more, and
thought he was unkind to press me. You know Aunt Erskine had told me;
and Horace, too, in a way--and he said at Hull he dreaded the
influence of this place, and--and--" "But there is nothing for _you_
to dread. This home is yours; and its influence is good; and all the
love you command here is your safety." Mrs. Brewer spoke boldly, and
quite with the spirit of heroism. She was standing up for her rights.
But Mr. Brewer stood at the door. "The lover wants to smoke in the
park in the moonlight. Some information just to direct his thoughts,
you little witch," for his step-child had tried to stop his mouth with
a kiss--
"Papa, I am so happy. I won't, because I can't, plan to leave
everything I love best in the world just as I come back to it." "But
you must give Erskine some kind of an answer. The poor fellow is
really very much in earnest. Come and see him." "No, I won't," said
Mary, very much as the wilful Claudia might have uttered the words.
But Mary was thinking that there was a great contrast between the
genial benevolence she had come to, and the indescribable _something_
which was _not_ benevolence in which she had lived ever since her
mother had become a Catholic. Mr. Brewer almost started. "I mean,
papa, that I must live here unmolested at least one month before I can
find out whether I am not always going to love _you_ best of all
mankind. Don't you think you could send Horace off to Scotland again
immediately?" "Bless the child! Think of the letters that have
passed--you read them, or knew of them?" "_Knew_ of them," said Mary,
nodding her head confidentially, and looking extremely naughty. "Well;
and I asked him here!" "Yes; I know that." "And you now tell me to
send him away! My dear!" exclaimed Mr. Brewer, looking
appealingly at his wife. "Dearest, you must tell Mr. Erskine that Mary
really would like to be left quiet for awhile. Say so now; and
to-morrow you can suggest his going soon, and returning in a few
weeks." "And to-morrow I can have a cold and lie in bed. Can't I?"
said Mary. But now they ceased talking, and heard Horace Erskine go
out of the door to the portico. "There! he's gone. And I am sure I can
smell a cigar--and I could hate smoking, couldn't I?" Mother and
father now scolded the saucy child, and condemned her to solitude and
sleep. And when they were gone the girl put her head out of the open
window, and gazed across the spreading park, so peaceful in its
far-stretching flat, just roughened in places by the fern that had
begun to get brown under the hot sun; and then she listened to the
sound of the wind that came up in earnest whispers from the woody
corners, and the far-off forests of oak. The sound rose and fell like
waves, and the silence between those low outpourings of mysterious
sound was loaded with solemnity.
Do the whispering woods praise him; and are their prayers in the tall
trees? She was full of fancies that night. But the words Father
Daniels had said to her seemed to her to come again on the
night-breeze, and then she was quiet and still. And yet--and
yet--though she _tried_ to forget, and _tried_ to keep her mind at
peace, the spirit within would rise from its rest, and say that she
had left an atmosphere of evil speaking and uncharitableness; that
malice and harsh judgment had been hard at work, and all to poison
_home_, and to win her from it.
And while she was trying to still these troublings of the mind, Mr.
Brewer, by her mother's side, was reading for the first time Mrs.
Erskine's letter, which Father Daniels had returned. "My dear, my
dear," said Mr. Brewer, "a very improper letter. I think Mary is a
very extraordinary girl not to have been prejudiced against me. I
shall always feel grateful to her. And as to this letter, which I call
a very painful letter, don't you think we had better burn it?" And so,
by the assistance of a lighted taper, Mr. Brewer cleared that evil
thing out of his path for ever.
"Eleanor," said Lady Greystock, "how lovely this evening is. The moon
is full, and how glorious! Shall we drive by a roundabout way to
Blagden? James," speaking to the man who occupied the seat behind,
"how far is it out of our way if we go through the drive in Beremouth
Park, and come out by the West Lodge into the Blagden turnpike road?"
"It will be two miles further, my lady. But the road is very good, and
the carriage will run very light over the gravelled road in the park."
"Then we'll go." So on getting to the bottom of the street in which
Mrs. Morier lived, Lady Greystock took the road to Beremouth; and the
ponies seemed to enjoy the change, and the whole world, except those
three who were passing so pleasantly through a portion of it, seemed
to sleep beneath the face of that great moon, wearing, as all full
moons do, a sweet grave look of watching on its face.
"Isn't it glorious? Isn't it grand, this great expanse and this
perfect calm? Ah, there goes a bat; and a droning beetle on the wing
just makes one know what silence we are passing through. How pure the
air feels. Oh, what blessings we have in life--how many more than we
know of. I think of that in the still evenings often. Do you,
Eleanor?"
"Yes, Lady Greystock." But Eleanor spoke in a very calm,
business-like, convinced sort of manner; not the least infected by the
tears of tenderness and the poetical feeling that Lady Greystock had
betrayed.
"Yes, Lady Greystock And when in great moments"--"Great moments! I
like that," said Claudia--"when I have those thoughts I think of
you." "Of me?" "Yes. And I am profoundly struck by the goodness of
God, who endowed the great interest of my life with so powerful an
attraction for me. I must have either liked or disliked you. I am so
glad to love you."
"Eleanor, I wish you would tell me the story of your life." They had
passed through the lodge gates now, and were driving through Beremouth
Park. "You were not always what you are now."
"You will know it one day," said Eleanor, softly. "Oh, see how the
moon comes out from behind that great fleecy cloud; just in time to
light us as we pass through the shadows which these grand oaks cast.
What lines of silver light lie on the road before us. It is a treat to
be out in such a place on such a night as this. Stay, stay, Lady
Greystock. What is that?"
Lady Greystock pulled up suddenly, and standing full in the moonlight,
on the turf at the side of the carriage, was a tall, strong-built man.
He took off his cap with a respectful air, and said, "I beg pardon. I
did not intend to stop you. But if you will allow me I will ask your
servant a question." He addressed Lady Greystock, and did not seem to
look at Eleanor, though she was nearest to him. Eleanor had suddenly
pulled a veil over her face; but Lady Greystock had taken hers from
her hat, and her uncovered face was turned toward the man with the
moonlight full upon it. He said to the servant, "Can you tell me where
a person called Eleanor Evelyn is to be found? Mrs. Evelyn she is
probably called. I want to know where she is." Before James, who had
long known the person by his mistress's side as Mrs. Evelyn, could
speak, or recover from his very natural surprise, Eleanor herself
spoke. "Yes," she said, "Mrs. Evelyn lives not far from Marston. I
should advise you to call on Mrs. Jenifer Stanton, who lives at
Marston with Mrs. Morier. She will tell you about her." "She who lives
with Madam Morier, of course?" said the man. "Yes; the same."
"Goodnight."
"Good night," said Lady Greystock in answer, and obeying Eleanor's
whispered "Drive on," she let the ponies, longing for their stable,
break into their own rapid pace, and, soon out of the shadows, they
were in the light--the broad, calm, silent light--once more.